Distinguished Colleagues, Dear Friends,

This is my twenty sixth progress report after 790 days as your President. Note that previous reports are on the ISSMGE web site (http://www.issmge.org/) under “From the President” if you need them. In this report, I would like to talk to you about our upcoming webinars, about Corporate Associates, and about the ISSMGE song.

December 2011 Webinar on Eurocode 7: the next webinar will be free again! While we have made some progress on organizing the on line payment system, we are not there yet. I never thought that it would be that complicated in this day and age to get this sort of things organized. The next webinar is set for 19 December 2011 at UTC 3pm or 15h00 on another exciting geotechnical engineering topic: Eurocode 7. The speaker will be Dr. Andrew Bond (U.K.), chair of the Eurocode 7 committee. As you know the issue of whether geotechnical engineering should be codified or not has been a hot issue for a long time. Some say that codes stifle engineering judgment, something so important in our field. Others say that codes help raise quality and decrease risk. Which is it? Find out how Eurocode 7 has addressed these important issues by attending our next ISSMGE webinar. To register, go to https://issmge.webex.com/issmge/k2/j.php?ED=3138412&UID=0&HMAC=246ac71d98814637501b8728b3006c107270da35&RT=MiM3

February 2012 Webinar on Risk: the February webinar is on a topic that I really enjoy: Risk and Geotechnical Engineering. Professor Medina (USA) and Dr. Uzielli (Italy) will join forces to present this 90 minutes webinar as a contribution from the TC on Risk Assessment and Risk Management chaired by Professor Phoon (Singapore). I share with you the following statistics on death as an indication of the probability of failure that we tolerate.
Corporate Associates recruiting: Corporate Associates are companies in our field which are “associate members” of ISSMGE. The number of ISSMGE Corporate Associates is much smaller than the number for our sister societies. I noticed that a while back and created the Corporate Associates Presidential Group (CAPG) to find out how we could attract more CAs. We are making progress thanks to Michael Lisyuk (Russia), Chair of CAPG, Harry Poulos (Australia), Chair of the membership committee (MPAC), Luiz-Guilherme DeMello (Brazil), Vice chair of MPAC, and many of you working behind the scene. Thanks to you we have moved from about 20 CAs in 2009 to about 30 in 2011. My goal is to reach 50 by the end of my term in 2013. I attach a slide I show at all conferences that I attend. If your company’s name is on that slide, I thank you for your contribution to our profession and I urge you to speak up to impact the future of ISSMGE. If your company’s name is not on that slide, please contact me to learn more about the benefits of becoming a CA and joining the professional family.

ISSMGE Song: I mentioned in my last progress report that Jana Frankovska (President of the Czech and Slovak Society) composed a song that she proposed as the ISSMGE song. I attach the sheet music for the song and we have uploaded a recording of the song by Jana’s sister in law on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfuemmFJpVk For many of you it is a festive season and a good occasion to be with your family and sing a song: so here is your chance to practice.

Best wishes and season’s greetings.

Jean-Louis BRIAUD, PhD, PE
President of ISSMGE
International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering

Professor and Holder of the Buchanan Chair
Zachry Dpt of Civil Engineering
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-3136, USA
Tel: 979-8453795
Cell: 979-7771692
Fax: 979-8456554
Email: briaud@tamu.edu
URL: http://ceprofs.tamu.edu/briaud/